Practical machine learning techniques are finding their way into more and more places. The Mozilla project has started using machine learning for spam filtering and now for address completion [mozilla.org]. I am definitely looking forward to this feature. Sorting the address history in alphabetical order is simplistic and often times completely useless. I expect these types of features are going to start popping up in more and more places. 2:42:28 PM    comment []  

This interview with Martin Schulze, from the Debian press team, is a couple of months old, but it gives a very nice overview of what differentiates Debian from other Linux distributions [The Age]. 2:34:29 PM    comment []  

Snowflakes are one of those everyday, almost mundane natural phenomenon that can fill us with awe, yet be completely overlooked. The precise workings of snowflakes is something that scientists have yet to crack, yet there is a simplicity to them that seems very tractable. If that were not enough, they are simply beautiful to look at [Snow Crystal Photo Gallery][via boingboing]. 11:04:52 AM    comment []  

My wife is an English as a Second Language (ESL) instructor for the University of Washington. Currently, however, she is teaching some ESL classes on the Microsoft campus. She works helping the non-native English speaking population at Microsoft to improve their pronunciation and general speaking skills.

Last night, I joined in on an end-of-the-quarter dinner that she had with one of her classes. During the course of the meal, I had a thought. How many Microsoft developers are Slashdot readers?

I posed this question to the class (nearly all of whom were developers) and not a single one of them had ever even heard of Slashdot! Now, I find that almost impossible to believe, but there it was right in front of me; a table full of developers who had never heard of Slashdot.

The first thing that comes to mind is that these Microsoft employees, by virtue of the fact that they are non-native English speakers, are probably not typical of the overall Microsoft developer population. But, it was a very surprising result, none the less. Now I am very curious to interview more Microsoft developers to see how pervasive this lack of familiarity with Slashdot is. 10:19:38 AM    comment []